Tele relies on TV
TV Press: Since last week, Tele has been sporting a new look. The excess has been pared down. Switzerland is the focus.
TV Press Since last week, Tele has had a new look. The superfluous has been cleared out. Switzerland is the trump card.program guides are signposts. They help readers to keep their bearings in the TV jungle. But if you want to show the way, you have to know where you stand. This was not always the case at Tele: "We wanted to offer more and more in recent years and lost our bearings somewhat," admits interim editor-in-chief Stephan Sutter. With the redesign completed last week, he therefore wants to return to clear structures, starting with the design. The font family has been radically cleared out. Only three fonts are still in use. One of these is Poynter, a discovery by Tele-Art Director Stéphane Carpentier. It was developed specifically for listings and is intended to make the program columns easier to read.
The color coding in the margins, which previously indicated the different sections, has also disappeared. It was a particular thorn in Sutter's side. In the new Tele, only the individual program days are marked with colors. Much more colorful, brighter tones are used than before.
Tele has chosen a cool light blue as the basic color, for example for the content and editorial. The logo on the front page has also been colored accordingly. But it is not to stay that way. "The red logo simply clashed with the cover design and the winter hits theme," explains Stephan Sutter. It will be red again in the next issues. "We're taking the liberty of playing with it a little."
Program slides forward
Tele also gives the content a clearer structure. The "Schweizer Medienmagazin" becomes the "Schweizer TV- und Kinomagazin". Television takes center stage. The film section has been moved to the back, so that the program now begins after around 20 pages instead of 40. The multimedia section has been largely removed. What remains is a double page with games and technology and the DVD tips, which have now been integrated into the TV and cinema sections.
Stephan Sutter does not see this restriction to the core business
as a relaunch, but as a further development. His predecessor Klaus Kriesel had already realized that Tele had ventured too far into unfamiliar areas and discontinued the Finance page. Sutter, for his part, said goodbye to the Science section even before the redesign was implemented.
Plenty of room for SF DRS
One innovation in particular stands out in the listings: the SF 1 and SF 2 programs are now the only ones to be printed two columns wide. This gives program listings significantly more space. The fifth column of the first program page is now filled by the local stations TeleZüri, TeleBärn, Telebasel and Tele M1/Tele- Tell, which were previously squeezed into a small box on page 3. 3sat also has more space available. In contrast, U1 has been relegated to the very last box in the listings.
This focus on Swiss programs is Tele's trump card, which publisher Ringier is playing against the strong German competition. It can also be found in the topics of the editorial contributions. However, Stephan Sutter does not want to get bogged down in local affairs. As with the order of the channels in the listings, the weighting of the topics is more or less based on the ratings, he explains. Big boxes such as "Wetten, dass ..." will continue to have their place at the top of Tele's listings.
Redesign rescue planDeclining circulation figures are the background to the redesign of Tele. In the Wemf interim certification in October, the magazine
again lost 4.5 percent. Since 2001, the circulation of 223739
to 191424 copies.
Rival TR7 has caught up strongly with 173720 units. The German programs have also suffered a painful decline.
TV Spielfilm, for example, has almost half as many readers in Mach Basic 2003 as Tele (313,000 compared to 711,000). Here
Tele is gaining ground by focusing on Swiss television topics.
At the same time, the repositioning is also a cost-cutting exercise. In the editorial department, 8.1 jobs were cut. The number of pages fell from 124 to 116 with the relaunch edition, but the number of pages will be increased again as soon as the advertising situation improves.
The redesign changes little for advertisers. The prices remain the same. Tele has introduced new small formats within the program listings. In addition to third and sixth pages, ninth and eighteenth pages are now also on offer. (sm)
With the redesign, Tele is returning to clear structures and giving Swiss programs more space.
Stefano Monachesi
The color coding in the margins, which previously indicated the different sections, has also disappeared. It was a particular thorn in Sutter's side. In the new Tele, only the individual program days are marked with colors. Much more colorful, brighter tones are used than before.
Tele has chosen a cool light blue as the basic color, for example for the content and editorial. The logo on the front page has also been colored accordingly. But it is not to stay that way. "The red logo simply clashed with the cover design and the winter hits theme," explains Stephan Sutter. It will be red again in the next issues. "We're taking the liberty of playing with it a little."
Program slides forward
Tele also gives the content a clearer structure. The "Schweizer Medienmagazin" becomes the "Schweizer TV- und Kinomagazin". Television takes center stage. The film section has been moved to the back, so that the program now begins after around 20 pages instead of 40. The multimedia section has been largely removed. What remains is a double page with games and technology and the DVD tips, which have now been integrated into the TV and cinema sections.
Stephan Sutter does not see this restriction to the core business
as a relaunch, but as a further development. His predecessor Klaus Kriesel had already realized that Tele had ventured too far into unfamiliar areas and discontinued the Finance page. Sutter, for his part, said goodbye to the Science section even before the redesign was implemented.
Plenty of room for SF DRS
One innovation in particular stands out in the listings: the SF 1 and SF 2 programs are now the only ones to be printed two columns wide. This gives program listings significantly more space. The fifth column of the first program page is now filled by the local stations TeleZüri, TeleBärn, Telebasel and Tele M1/Tele- Tell, which were previously squeezed into a small box on page 3. 3sat also has more space available. In contrast, U1 has been relegated to the very last box in the listings.
This focus on Swiss programs is Tele's trump card, which publisher Ringier is playing against the strong German competition. It can also be found in the topics of the editorial contributions. However, Stephan Sutter does not want to get bogged down in local affairs. As with the order of the channels in the listings, the weighting of the topics is more or less based on the ratings, he explains. Big boxes such as "Wetten, dass ..." will continue to have their place at the top of Tele's listings.
Redesign rescue planDeclining circulation figures are the background to the redesign of Tele. In the Wemf interim certification in October, the magazine
again lost 4.5 percent. Since 2001, the circulation of 223739
to 191424 copies.
Rival TR7 has caught up strongly with 173720 units. The German programs have also suffered a painful decline.
TV Spielfilm, for example, has almost half as many readers in Mach Basic 2003 as Tele (313,000 compared to 711,000). Here
Tele is gaining ground by focusing on Swiss television topics.
At the same time, the repositioning is also a cost-cutting exercise. In the editorial department, 8.1 jobs were cut. The number of pages fell from 124 to 116 with the relaunch edition, but the number of pages will be increased again as soon as the advertising situation improves.
The redesign changes little for advertisers. The prices remain the same. Tele has introduced new small formats within the program listings. In addition to third and sixth pages, ninth and eighteenth pages are now also on offer. (sm)
With the redesign, Tele is returning to clear structures and giving Swiss programs more space.
Stefano Monachesi
